Your very ordinary mind is the
mind of Buddha. Your very ordinary body is the body of Christ

THIS
IS A PEOPLE'S NONDUALITY

by
Michael Read

The other day I did a
web search on Advaita. There were 10,700 hits! This leads me to
think aboout religion in general. How many there are! And how
divided each one of them is! Sects within sects abound. So many
belief systems, so little time! :-)

In the introduction for this site I say that I hold no beliefs.
Oh, but I used to! At the age of eight I was a Baptist, at the
age of 12 a Mennonite, and at the age of 16 a Catholic. Now I
wasn't seeking at those young ages. No, it was the circumstances
of life and who I was living with at the time. Baptist - living
with Dad. Mennonite - living with Mom. Catholic - living with
foster parents.

A basic tenent of these forms of Christianity is that we are
separate from God. "All have sinned and fallen short of the
glory of God." Another belief is that God is everywhere.
Infinite. Beyond understanding. All we can hope to so is to have
faith and to worship God. And, if we are judged worthy, upon
death we get to go to heaven and live with God.

Phooey!

When I asked (at age fifteen) the older people in my life what
their understanding of the teaching that God is infinite. I had
come to realize that if God were indeed infinite we were all God.
Not just a part of God but God in the flesh. Oh! How I got chewed
out for that! What an impertinent little shit I was! HAHAHAH! I
had developed my own little belief that was more comfortable to
me than what I had been taught up to that point.

In the early seventies, after being discharged from the Navy, I
found myself following a guru. He was 'Guru Maharaji - the
fifteen year old Perfect Master'. His knowledge, it was said, was
the only true way to see God. He taught that guru was greater
than God. If the followers had not 'realized' the knowledge (four
meditation techniques) we had been given, it was because we had
not surrendered sufficiently to the guru.

Phooey! After about four years of that, I walked away from it.

In 1999 I joined a Qi-Qong group. At first I really enjoyed it. I
still do the exercises. They have some health benefit for the
body and can aid one in calming. This group would meet Monday
evenings for an hour of Qi-Qong exercises and then we would form
a 'talking circle' to discuss what was going on with us and our
'path'.

After some time, I realized that this small (5-6 people) group
was rapidly becoming a mini-cult. It wasn't about exploring the
wonders of being alive. It was about justifying the belief that
this group had the truth and everybody else was deluded.

More phooey!

I set for myself the goal of becoming enlightened. Nothing else
mattered. I did not work. With great intensity I studied the
Bagavahd Gita, the Christian bible, Buddhist scripture, and did a
lot of meditation.

All of my energy was focused on attaining this thing called
enlightenment. Nothing else mattered. Slowly but steadily the
concepts that I was holding about enlightenment began to fall
away. As the concepts fell away a profound shift in perception
began to take place.
The shift was away from thinking and into being.

One afternoon everything 'fell away'. The circumstance was that I
was reading a passage about Buddha's words about when he attained
enlightenment. The passage is "When I attained pure and
perfect enlightenment, I realized that there is no such thing as
pure and perfect enlightenment! Marvelous, marvelous!"

What 'fell away' were the fears and concepts about 'who I was'
and 'what does it all mean?'. What was there was pure
conciousness. Just that. I cannot really describe that moment.
What I might say is this - the importance of being me ( a
separate individual) was gone. And nothing was in it's place.

How very ordinary and beautiful we all are! The light of Buddha
shines in all. The love that is Christ that sustains us is
everywhere. Truly it is all the play of Brahma!

Phooey! Phooey? Yeah - phooey. I did not do it. It happened. No
one is special. No one has a lock on the 'ultimate truth.' I
cannot 'teach' the ultimate truth to anyone. Yet, it is readily
available to all.

This I will say. Your very ordinary mind is the mind of Buddha.
Your very ordinary body is the body of Christ. Every random atom
- each passing molecule is the body of God.

If this helps, all well and good. If this doesn't help, just say
Phooey!

HAHAHAH and HOHOHO!

Peace - Michael

Michael Read runs The Way Station and has
made many contributions to this website.